1. Field of Invention
This invention relates generally to the field of television program receivers and receiving, and specifically to systems and methods which enable identification and replacement of commercial breaks in television programs.
2. Description of Related Art
The television industry has developed and thrived due to the sponsoring of entertainment programming by commercial interests. These commercial interests have resulted in the interruption of entertainment programming with advertising program segments, commonly referred to as commercials. Often, a number of individual commercials are “run” consecutively, interrupting the entertainment programming for an extended period of time. This is what is commonly referred to as a commercial break.
Many television viewers dislike commercial advertising and prefer to spend the time during commercial breaks performing alternative activities. However, because viewers do no want to miss substantial amounts of the entertainment programming they are viewing, and because commercial breaks last only a limited amount of time, viewers often do not want to watch an alternate entertainment program during commercial breaks. As used to describe the present invention, an entertainment program can be a television broadcast program, a DVD program, a VCR program, or any other program in which a person is merely a passive viewer. Watching an alternate entertainment program only during the commercial breaks of the desired entertainment program results in either a majority of the alternate entertainment program being missed or watching only short segments of the alternate entertainment program scattered over a considerable amount of time. Both are undesirable and often result in the viewer being unsatisfied and unentertained by the alternate entertainment program.
Currently, a number of approaches and methods exist for automatically identifying and replacing or editing the commercial break segments of television programming, for example see U.S. Pat. No. 5,973,723, DeLuca; U.S. Pat. No. 4,750,213, Novak; U.S. Pat. No. 6,011,537, 443, Igguldden; U.S. Pat. No. 5,999,689 Igguldden; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,818,440, Alibhoy, et al. While these prior art teachings disclose a variety of methods for automatically replacing the display of commercials, all of these prior art methods and apparatus teach replacing the commercial break programming with an alternate entertainment program such as a television broadcast program, a VCR program, a DVD program, or the like. For the reasons discussed above, all of these options are unsatisfactory.
Prior systems for detecting television commercial breaks have been suggested for use in VCR's wherein a videotape recording of a television broadcast can be played on the VCR, and commercials can be identified and skipped. Generally, such VCR systems can identify a certain signal or change in signal included in television broadcasts which signifies the beginning or end of a commercial break. Such VCR systems often output a blank or blue signal during the identified commercial breaks so that a user sees a blank screen during recorded commercial breaks when replaying a recorded broadcast television program. Digital VCR systems such as sold under the trademark TIVO can also be adapted to identify such commercial breaks and skip them during digital playback of user recorded television programs.
Systems which mute the sound or blank the screen during commercial breaks in television programming have also been suggested for television receivers, but such systems have not become readily available because there is no ability to fast forward while watching a program at the time it is being broadcast. Thus, a need still exists to provide viewers who wish to avoid watching commercial breaks with a satisfactory activity that can be performed during commercial breaks without resulting in the viewer missing a substantial amount of the desired television program.
An interactive application is any software program the execution of which is controlled by choices made by the user. Common examples of interactive applications are video games, word processors, spread sheet programs, and internet browser programs. Depending on the type and use of the interactive application involved, interactive application can be used for an almost endless number of purposes, ranging from performing employment related tasks to serving purely recreational purposes.
As a result of this diversity of uses, many people spend considerable amounts of time operating interactive applications by either necessity or pure desire. Moreover, many of these people are the same exact people who wish to avoid watching television commercial breaks. Thus, there is a current need to provide television viewers with a method and apparatus that automatically replaces television commercial breaks with an interactive application.
However, because commercial breaks only last a limited amount of time, and because user's objective in operating an interactive application often takes a longer time to meet than any single commercial break, there is also a need for the user to be able to progressively operate the interactive application (i.e. continue from the user's previous point of operation) during subsequent commercial breaks. Moreover, because a user does not know when a commercial break is going to end, and because many interactive applications require constant user attention and continuous user control, a need exists for automatically pausing (i.e. saving a user's progress in executing) the interactive application when a television commercial break ends.